Cedar Waxwing Paradise! Savannah Nest Cam – Feb. 9, 2023

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the sights and sounds of Skidaway Island, Georgia, as the cam zooms in on a large group of Cedar Waxwings during a morning tour of the treetops.

See if you can spot all of the characteristics that make these birds a sight to behold. Their subtle brown, yellow, and gray body feathers are accented with intensely bright (and often hidden) red wing tips, sweet-corn yellow tail tips, and a striking black mask across the eyes.

Keep your ears open if you're on a mission to find Cedar Waxwings. They are often heard before they’re seen, so learn their high-pitched call notes. Look for them low in berry bushes, high in evergreens, or along rivers and over ponds. Be sure to check big flocks of small birds: waxwings are similar to starlings in size and shape, and often form big unruly flocks that grow, shrink, divide, and rejoin like starling flocks.

Watch live at www.allaboutbirds.org/savannahospreys

During the Fall of 2014, a pair of Great Horned Owls began frequenting an abandoned Bald Eagle nest adjacent to a protected, nutrient-rich salt marsh along the Georgia coast. This nest sat nearly 80′ above one of the six Audubon International Certified golf courses at The Landings, on Skidaway Island, near Savannah, Georgia. Over the course of 2015 and 2016, a pair of owls successfully fledged four owlets from the site, but they did not return to breed again until 2022, when they fledged one owlet.

Instead, a pair of Ospreys began renovating the nest and committed to breeding at the same site from 2017 to 2019, when the dead tree that held the nest was removed due to being designated as a falling hazard. A new nest site was erected in an adjacent tree in the fall of 2019, and the Ospreys were quick to take up residence at the new site in 2020.

Ospreys are consummate fishing birds, and this pair fishes primarily from the nearby salt marsh, ponds, and waterways. They use their 6–7 foot wingspans to soar above the water, looking for fish, then diving as deep as 3 feet for shallow-swimming prey. Adult Ospreys usually weigh 3–4 pounds, and they can carry prey up to 50 percent of their own weight. Ospreys can live up to 25 years, and they typically lay 1–4 eggs in a clutch.

Most Osprey pairs are monogamous, staying paired across seasons and beginning nesting soon after each returns from a long migration. Both sexes incubate the eggs. The female sits for the majority of the time (including throughout the night) while the male provisions her with fish. After the eggs hatch, the male continues to bring fish to the nest; the female exclusively broods the young and dissects their meals for about a month after hatching. Later on, when the chicks no longer require her protection and their appetite for fish increases, she will leave the nest and go fishing.

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Видео Cedar Waxwing Paradise! Savannah Nest Cam – Feb. 9, 2023 канала Cornell Lab Bird Cams